Classic Framebuilding Course

Learn how to make bicycle frames, keep the skills and give your first frame to someone who really needs it.

Duration and Format

We teach this course either 1:1 or 2:1, full time over 5 days, Monday - Friday.

Syllabus

The course has been designed to give you a great foundation of skills and understanding so that you can go on and build more bicycle frames. This isn’t just a frame-building experience, we’re not going to build a frame or forks for you, we’ll teach you how while you build both from start to finish.

Oxy-Fuel Gas Safety

Fillet Brazing Masterclass

Bicycle Frame & Fork Design

BikeCAD

Tube Selection

Butted Tube Identification

Metal Working Basics

Tube Mitring

Tube bending

Jig Principles

Frame & Fork Assembly

Tacking

Fillet Brazing

Frame & Fork Alignment

Cold Setting

Frame and Fork Finishing

The Frame

So what about the frame that you build on the course? Well we give that to charity.

The TBA Africa Bike is a robust bicycle engineered specifically for rural African terrain and load requirements – such as having to carry over 100kg on the rear rack! It uses standard components used on over 100,000 bicycles that have already been distributed by other charities, so it’s not going to become obsolete – it’s built to last, and be serviceable for many years to come.

Once made and painted, your frame will be assembled with great components in Africa, before being donated to someone in need. We cover the material cost of building and painting the frame, and will be looking to raise money to fund the shipping and build of each bike shortly.

Workshop Hire

One of the many benefits of taking a course with us is that once you have graduated you can hire the use of one of our frame-building benches to work on your own frame building projects. We keep costs down and only charge for the time you spend in the workshop and any materials you use.